PRIDE 2025 in Retrograde
Dear Leading Ladies,
At my college graduation, the class poet stepped up to the podium to speak and announced that he was gay. The school authorities immediately cut his microphone. That was decades ago and we have come a long way since then.
Today we have countless “out” men and women using microphones to speak to us. Think Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper in the world of broadcasting; Pete Buttigieg and Tammy Baldwin in politics; Apple CEO Tim Cook and record producer David Geffen in business; and Neil Patrick Harris and Jodie Foster in the performing arts. These are just a few examples of many.
And yet, PRIDE Month 2025 comes with threats by the current administration to return to a past era of discrimination, harassment, and homophobia.
What follows is an abbreviated list of Trump’s latest attacks on the LGBT community, written and compiled by GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy and cultural change organization.
Safety Net by Joyce Audy Zarins
05.07.2025 Marked dozens of National Park Service grants for elimination, including a $58,000 grant to the State Historical Society of Colorado to survey potential LGBTQ sites for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
05.05.2025 Via HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has instructed staff to pause investigations of all gender identity discrimination cases, and is targeting the Obama-era Equal Access Rule that expanded protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
05.05.2025 The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics under Trump has removed all references to gender or gender identity from at least four federal surveys. The changes will make it nearly impossible to monitor crimes and other forms of violence experienced by transgender people.
05.04.2025 Scrapped more than $800 million in research into the health of LGBTQ people, abandoning studies of cancers and viruses and setting back efforts to defeat a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections.
04.04.2025 Issued a proclamation recognizing National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month that erroneously claims that assaults by undocumented immigrants are one of the leading causes of sexual violence. In fact, eight out of 10 rapes are committed by someone known to the victim, according to data from the Department of Justice.
04.04.2025 Targeted transgender people and health care in a proclamation declaring April National Child Abuse Prevention Month. The proclamation is defamatory and without basis and betrays the month’s purpose. Trump’s proclamation singled out transgender care, and without basis, called it a form of child abuse.
03.24.2025 Announced attempt to terminate at least 68 grants to 46 institutions, many of which were for research on the health of LGBTQ people. The grants totaled nearly $40 million when awarded and are funded through Congressional budget appropriation, which the executive branch does not control. Most were in some way related to LGBTQ health, including research on HIV prevention.
03.07.2025 Signed an executive order directing administration officials to modify the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to exclude nonprofit organizations engaged in activities he baselessly described as having a “substantial illegal purpose.” The order to limit the program is aimed at organizations supporting immigrants, diversity initiatives, or transgender care for youth.
03.07.2025 The Department of Defense is reportedly flagging content for removal via keyword search including “gay,” meaning references to the Enola Gay, an airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, would be scrubbed. The AP reports the “vast majority of the Pentagon purge targets women and minorities, including notable milestones made in the military.
03.04.2025 Falsely claimed in his Address to Congress that he “brought back free speech in America.” In fact, his administration has aggressively censored LGBTQ people and identities in executive orders, from federal websites, in health care, and from the Stonewall National Monument website.
03.04.2025 Made the dangerous and misleading claim that $8 million in taxpayer dollars were going towards creating “transgender mice.” In fact, this baseless claim comes from a far-right watchdog group. Transgenic mice are lab research mice that have been genetically altered to better model human disease response. They have been called a “revolutionary research resource” for medical advancements in asthma and cancer among other areas.
03.04.2025 Falsely claimed the USA was giving “$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” In fact, the U.S. government does not support LGBTQ initiatives in Lesotho, but it does promote widely used health programs, particularly HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Trump has previously disparaged African countries and Haiti.
02.19.2025 Rolled out a new HHS webpage, titled “Protecting Women and Children,” that employs Trump’s narrow and scientifically baseless definition of sex and asserts that gender-affirming care is a form of child abuse. The department is promoting a rigid definition of sex that excludes transgender identities, falsely framing gender-affirming care as “chemical and surgical mutilation” and targeting trans inclusion in sports. In fact, every major medical association and leading world health authority supports health care for transgender people and youth.
02.18.2025 Added a baseless disclaimer to the top of government websites for the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Health and Human Services after a federal judge ordered that web pages that contained vital information about trans people and other marginalized groups be reinstated. The pages were posted again with a false header that reads, “Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female…The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department reject it.”
02.14.2025 National Park Service removes the word “transgender” from the Stonewall National Monument website. Transgender people were central in the Stonewall Riots and remain essential in the past, present and future of the LGBTQ movement.
02.10.2025 Signed an executive order to target mainstream essential health care for transgender youth, using inaccurate and inflammatory graphic language. The care is supported by every major medical association and has been prescribed for decades, including throughout the first Trump administration. The order was blocked by a federal judge and prohibits federal agencies from conditioning or withholding federal funding based on the fact that a healthcare entity or professional provides gender-affirming medical care to a patient under nineteen.
02.10.2025 Removed “T” from the State Department travel advisory website which now only offers guidance for “LGB” travelers.
02.07.2025 Department of Justice directs federally-funded nonprofit organizations including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to remove references to transgender people from public materials. The Verge reported that three reports previously on the NCMEC website had become inaccessible, each of which mentioned LGBTQ people. LGBTQ youth are among the most vulnerable to housing insecurity, violence, and abuse.
02.04.2025 Paused foreign development assistance, including HIV drug supply to USAID-supported countries. USAID supported HIV treatment and prevention programs, including PEPFAR, which provided lifesaving treatment to millions of people in 54 countries. In addition to HIV programs, USAID supported the rights of LGBTQ people in Dominican Republic, Uganda, Bangladesh, Kosovo, and Guatemala, and worked with LGBTQ populations across Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
02.04.2025 Froze applications for the gender-neutral “X” marker on U.S. passports. The option had been added in 2021 by the Biden administration. Several countries worldwide already offer options other than male and female on official documents. India, Pakistan and Nepal already have a nonbinary option, and the Netherlands issued its first gender-neutral passport in 2018.
02.02.2025 Directed schools to stop using federal funding for purposes related to “gender ideology.” More here on the origins of the phrase used to dehumanize trans people.
01.31.2025 The Department of Education told K–12 schools and colleges that it would reinstate policies from President Trump’s first term, limiting schools’ responsibility in sexual misconduct cases and provided more extensive rights to students accused of sexual harassment and assault. This reverses the Biden administration’ broadening of Title IX law which held that harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity is a form of discrimination.
01.27.2025 Signed an executive order directing the Secretary of Defense to reinstate a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
01.23.2025 Moved some transgender women in prisons to administrative isolation and mandated that transgender women prisoners be detained in men’s prisons.
01.23.2025 Falsely claimed, among multiple baseless claims and wild exaggerations in a speech to global leaders at the World Economic Forum, that “there are only two genders, male and female. And we will have no men participating in women’s sports and transgender operations, which became the rage, will occur very rarely.” Facts: Science and medicine as well as cultures throughout history have long acknowledged wider diversity of gender. Transgender women are women, and sometimes play sports. “Transgender operations” are already quite rare.
01.20.2025 Signed an executive order revoking multiple Biden-era policies. This order revoked an executive order that addressed discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
01.20.2025 Ordered an end to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government, putting such staff on immediate administrative leave.
01.20.2025 The Trump administration has eliminated nearly all LGBTQ and HIV focused content and resources from the White House website, as well as eliminated LGBTQ and HIV content from key federal agency webpages. Mentions of “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “gay,” “transgender,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and related terms are no longer accessible on White House.gov, and the search term “LGBTQ” now brings up zero results on the site. In addition, some LGBTQ-specific pages have been taken down from the Centers for Disease Control, Department of State, and more.
01.20.2025 Signed an executive order declaring that the federal government would recognize only two immutable sexes: male and female.
To read the unabbreviated list and descriptions from GLAAD, click here.
It is clear that Trump has only just begun his assault on LGBTQ+ people in our country and beyond. As he has done before, he has given permission for those with deep-seeded hate and homophobia to express their feelings, not only without consequences but with accolades. Our gay children, grandchildren, friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbors are all at risk and vulnerable, after a period of relative safety and security. They will need our love and support more than ever.
But the problem goes further. Medical and social services are being cut; research into diseases and treatments are disappearing. Safety nets, if not missing, are clearly smaller than what is needed.
This PRIDE Month, let’s take to the streets and join the marches. The parade in Providence is June 21; Boston is June 14 (yes, the same as No Kings rally and Beverly Arts Fest, but hey, make a day of it!), and Portsmouth, NH, is June 21. If these don’t work for you, Google what is near to you.
There’s a lot to digest in the information from GLAAD. We advise focusing on one or two actions by Trump that you find especially egregious and committing them with details to memory so that you can share the information with others. We believe that spreading the rage can lead others to action, too.
Lead on!
Therese (she/her/hers)
Judy (she/her/hers)
Didi (she/her/hers)
Leading Ladies Executive Team